Archive for the ‘Foreclosure Listings’ Category

The manufacturing industry is in the doldrums. Unemployment is high forcing people into the foreclosure process. The number slipping into its grip is rising by the day. Munster ranks among the highest foreclosed regions. Indiana, Ohio and Michigan have been reeling under shutdowns and vanishing jobs. This triad accounts for 20% of the foreclosures countrywide. Most of the foreclosure victims are also victims of unemployment. They are losing their homes and the fires of their hearth are soon going to snuff out.

Indiana Bankers Association sends out the advices that if there is some equity left on the property then fall back on it. It will steer you through. Realtor’s associations in Indiana have been doing a lot of digging. Their opinion is that what we are seeing today is the outcome of years of sub-prime mismanagement that is now affecting the locality as well as the nation. Experts apprehend that more than 2 million adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) will push in for higher rates all across the country within a few years. Indiana has a high rate of house ownership – as high as 75%. On the negative side it ranks second with the largest number of foreclosure listings. Indiana comes 44th in the recent counting of one-year price growth done by a federal body dealing with the relevant subject.

It is the thinking of the borrowers that went awry. They bought houses that they could not afford. They never gave a serious thought to the fact that after the honeymoon period of low rates the latter would swell and balloon up. During the first years an adjustable rate is low – being known as teaser rates. These tempted buyers to opt for the non-conventional loans. The borrower kept hoping that things would look up on their economic front within few years. But in reality this never happens. There is logic behind everything. The main causes were low appreciation rates of properties, affordable housing and high loan-to-value loan rations.

Operations are underway to assist people. One of them involves more down payment assistance that does away or lessens cash down fees. Those who plan to buy property must first become financially literate and understand all the legal and other implications. Secondly a minimum amount of foresight is a must. The most important issue is creating jobs. Without jobs there cannot be home fires burning.

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The foreclosure crisis marches on and following its trail are hungry predators who are making a living out of people’s woes. Better Business Bureau of Central and Northern Arizona have sent out a loud warning.

It is apprehended that nearly 1.7 million houses will soon be tainted with foreclosure. The affected will be desperate trying to save their home and hearth. In the melee they will catch on to anything – even a straw. Here lies the danger. The wolf will knock wearing grandmother’s clothes. Beware!

The bureaus are flooded with complaints from foreclosure victims who reached out to questionable foreclosure rescue companies. The whole thing is another scam. In the last three years there have been 111 complaints.

The usual mode of approach is that these crooks first make contact over phone or mail. Sometimes they make themselves available on the web where they make tall claims about refinancing loans and stopping foreclosure procedures. The bait is that they promise to return fees if the services are not properly delivered. Desperate sufferers had paid as much as $1,300 only to come up against a blank wall – no redress and no refund.

Better Business Bureau gives the following tips to foreclosure victims. They should immediately contact BBB over phone or through Internet and ask for a Reliability Report, which is free. Without this report no payment should be made to anyone plying a lifeboat.

The other option is to check the rescuers credentials with the office of the Attorney General. In general one should be cautious about the personal approach like a handwritten note popping out of the mailbox or under the front door. The language will be gushing and flowery about help being at your doorstep. The tone is that only your interest is on their minds!

The best thing is to directly approach the lender. Negotiate with the mortgage company.

A legal document should never be signed under duress. Especially be cautious about trusting smart talkers and signing away your property rights. Before putting your name on the dotted line consult a family member/friend, lawyer or financial expert. Give them time to scrutinize the paper.

If the feeling persists that the ‘rescue’ team has duped the victim, do not hesitate or delay but immediately contact BBB or any recognized government body. The authorities are alert about these roving wolves baring fangs underneath granny’s bonnet.

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One by one the chapters of the foreclosure story are unfolding. That which began in Wall Street has spread on to Main Street. The author of the script is the ARM or Adjustable Rate Mortgage. It initially gives the borrower a teaser interest rate, which is low. Later it resets at a much higher rate. The borrowers fall for the smart talk of the lenders who tell them that to avoid the increase they can easily go for refinancing.

Inevitably ARM’s gained in popularity during the first half of this decade. Brokers with the bait of commission dangling before them went all out to sell the mortgage scheme. The legal side with was purposefully not fully explained to the borrowers. But when the time came for the actual work of refinancing it was difficult to get in touch with the person whom the lenders had never seen. When the foreclosure went public prospective buyers began to crowd in. Such a situation spells trauma for a family with children.

Some are fortunate to refinance into a longer period fixed rate mortgage but others have to move out bag and baggage unable to repay mounting debts.

Chicago recorded 10,294 foreclosures in 2006 according to reliable sources keeping track of the situation. The number is 36% higher than the figures of 2005. This year and in 2008 the fear is that the numbers might rise to anything between 16,000 and 17,000.
During the early part of the defaulting crisis the families who were mostly affected came from the low or moderate income groups. However the scenario in Chicago is not quite so bad as that in other parts of the country because the economic picture here is diverse. A factory closing down in one place does not affect the whole of Chicago, unlike the tendency in places like Michigan and Ohio.

In Chicago foreclosures on prime loans jumped to 46% in 2006 as compared to 21% in 2002. Until the new players butted in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the two largest loan wholesalers dealing with conventional loans. But the new comers saw to it that borrowers could not go back to the shelter of the traditional market by imposing fines for premature loan closure. The mortgage market became liquid trying to accommodate all and sundry. Solutions are being tried out but till then the borrowers remain in limbo.

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It was no easy matter for Coconut Grove Playhouse to extricate itself from a jumbo financial mire by raising more than $470,000 to calm down a creditor and plug a scheduled foreclosure aimed to slice away a part of its property. The portion of the Playhouse property is a vacant plot next to a theatre – The Bike Shop. It was scheduled to go in for auction on Wednesday morning.

Playhouse is South Florida’s oldest theatre set to celebrate its half-century when it was closed down in April 2006. As a fallout of this imbroglio the employees were let off with a big question mark on their dues. The long-standing controversial art director, Mittelman, resigned in May. Other board members have followed suit.

The legal representatives of the principal creditor James F. Perry & Co confirmed that Playhouse had taken a loan of $350,000 on November 2004 but by last Tuesday night they had repaid the loan together with interest and incidental fees in its entirety. It was settled with the payment of $471,705.51 involving a lot of hard work, grit and determination.

Playhouse chairperson Spivack was not available for commenting on how the money was raised. Former board members of Playhouse who had a stake in the Perry loan, Wiener, Steinberg, Mitchell and Ruwitch, were also silent on that point.

Miami-Dade County’s department for cultural affairs actively came forward to sort out the knot. Most of the dues of the former employees have been cleared. The sanction of a grant for improvement of the building from Florida Department of Sate amounting to $125,000 went towards clearing some salary dues. But since some are still pending the theatre as well as Mittelman remains on the default list of unions. No actor or manager can work here until debts are cleared. The county came forward with a budget of $500,000 to help managers, lawyers and accountants who had worked on the salvage operations. Theatre lovers had bought advance subscriptions for 2006 – 20007 but to their dismay the theatre closed down without refunding their money. However the cultural affairs department of the County has come up with a plan why which these subscribers will be able to see play at other theatres for the specified season, in the region without paying further money. The hope is that if Playhouse reopens the subscribers will be again offered vouchers.

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One out of every 47 houses is popping into the foreclosure oven making it one of the hottest cities in the grips of the reigning real estate crisis. It ranks 8th among the leading 100 cities buzzing with foreclosure activity during the first half of this year. The figures have been released by one of the premier tracking groups online, based in Irvine.

The apprehension is that things are going to get worse. 82 of this group of 100 consisting of the prime metro cities in USA are reporting a year-over-year escalation in the number of foreclosures. The numbers are taking everyone by surprise. Things were bad but nobody thought it was that bad. Kern County stood 8th in the first quarter of this year.

According to reliable figures the foreclosure pot continues to boil in California. Stockton, Sacramento and the combined Riverside and San Bernardino region having the dubious distinction of being including among the top 10 rankers. The tracking group makes use of records given out by the counties. The figures are inclusive of default notices, pending lists, sales by trustees and real estate owners. Stockton ranked first. Here one out of every 27 units came under the foreclosure cloud. Among the prime ten defaulters were Las Vegas, Detroit, Denver, Miami, Memphis, Tenn. and Cleveland. The least foreclosure activity was noticeable in Richmond and Va.

The foreclosure fall out is the result of many factors – mismanagement of sub-prime mortgages combined with general economic ill health of the country leading to unemployment. If the reasons are multifarious the results too are many pronged. With too many houses up for sale the real estate prices are plummeting. This is touching those units that are not directly under the foreclosure hammer. The mortgage industry has tightened its belt with the result that there are not enough buyers for houses. The banks are sitting with idle properties and empty coffers. This is sending alarm signals to brokers in Wall Street. The Wall Street sneeze is making international stock markets catch a cold. Closer home vacant houses are happy hunting grounds for vagrants and addicts leading to law and order problems. A new group of advisers have cropped up trying to help foreclosure victims. Politicians take this as an opportune moment to fish in troubled waters and make loud noises about cooling the heat and switching off the oven.

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Stockton was once a haven for house hunters. The Bay Area had become too hot to touch – overcrowded and costly. So people opted for Stockton. But today the picture is desolate with ‘For Sale’ signs dotting the scene. Foreclosures waves are lashing the country and Stockton has the dubious distinction of leading the bandwagon with the highest numbers of foreclosures nationwide.

Stockton is a city kissed by the Sun with 285,000 residents. It lies 90 miles to the east of San Francisco. Over the last ten years the number or residents have gone up as more people turned away from the Bay area hunting for affordable housing units. Then why has the milk suddenly turned sour? It is mainly because of houses bought with loans taken from the sub-prime category. These were teaser loans. Sometimes for a negligible down payment most of the initial financing was waived. But within a year or two the lender began to demand higher monthly instalments, which the borrower just could not afford.

Alma Neri, mother of three is one of the householders caught in this vicious net. The Neris lived in one house and invested in another planning to sell the first one and move on to the second. But now both the houses are sitting idle and the family finding it impossible to meet mortgage commitments for both. Debt is piling up while equity is falling. It is the same grim picture within a half-mile radius of their residence.

Six cities in California are leading in this number game. California, with 54,000 default notices in the second quarter of this year, ranks third after Nevada and Colorado in the foreclosure race. A non-profit organization is trying to do some rescue work by writing to lenders asking them for a stay.

The worst affected are the seniors and coloured citizens. But the infection is now spreading vertically and horizontally cutting across all line differences.

In June state leaders made a hue and cry about forming a forum but in most of the cases help was coming in too late. The damage had been done. The lender should have been approached much earlier.

Stockton brokers are now opting for short sales wherein the owner directly sells the property at a low rate hoping to clear at least a major part of the mortgage. Even then buyers are not available.

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Birmingham based Shore Mortgage watched with caution the stirring up of the mud in the sub-prime real estate market. But the young lender at the helm is ever ready to jump in and take a chance again. Brian May an office bearer of the company spoke about having helped a Romanian engineer. The latter had no credit roots in USA, which would enable him to take a loan. May justified their action by underlying the human aspect to the problem.

The company comprises of human beings and not just robotic computers. This is the guiding force motivating the action of the company. May went on to add that his company is mainly concerned with government loans to people who can keep up the mortgage commitment but whose credit ratings may not meet the usual loan standards. Shore Mortgage has always been particular about not entering either the sub-prime or Alt-A loan areas if they are not satisfied with the proof of the income of the lenders. They take into consideration people who can show employment records of about two years and are able to make a down payment of 5% in ready cash. Then they overlook the aspect of the credit history being good or bad. If the clients lack traditional credit cards and previous history of repaying loans Shore takes into account their records relating to payment of bills and rent. That is why till date they have not had any problems about foreclosures.

Shore Mortgage advances about 4,000 loans annually and has been in this business since 1984. However the real estate fiasco has meant a slow down in the business of Shore Mortgage. It has under its umbrella 200 employees in six offices across Michigan. Ohio and Alabama too feature under its zone of operation.

Michigan had the distinction of ranking third in the mortgage delinquency rates, new and old foreclosures during the first quarter of this year according to figures released by Mortgage Bankers Association. The President of Michigan Mortgage Brokers Association Paya Leyrer opines that although sub-prime has been mainly blamed for the foreclosure there are other economic factors like unemployment. In Michigan a good number of people have lost their jobs. A lot of effort is being made to make the borrower aware about what taking a loan involves and how to avoid failure and register success.

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BIOTA a water bottling company based in Telluride has been ordered to proceed with foreclosure sale as per orders of USA Bankruptcy Court. An attempt to delay it has met with failure.

As per releases of the aforesaid Court in Colorado district, BIOTA (Blame it On the Altitude) owes more than 100 creditors the total amount of $10.5 million. It largest creditor is United Parcel Service’s lending depart UPS Capital Business Credit.

BIOTA is disputing its claims of $7.5 million. BIOTA says that it will first go through the foreclosure and then stake counter claims against UPS by asking of $10 million as damages for unethical lending, says Jeffrey Hart the attorney of BIOTA based in Plymouth, Michigan. Hart opines that things are just warming up for the big battle ahead.

UPS Capital was not available for comments regarding the imminent war drums except for a vague statement that BIOTA’s attitude was most unfortunate.

A part of the disputed $7.5 million is about a loan of the Department of Agriculture, USA, which UPS Capital was responsible for collecting. Unfortunately BIOTA failed to repay. These loans are federally guaranteed. It is the taxpayer who is the actual lender. It went into default two years ago. But since then all avenues have been probed without any favourable result.

BIOTA came into name and fame using biodegradable bottles. They have now negotiated with a group willing to buy its assets and save it from the debt trap. The group will either buy during the foreclosure sale or at a later date during the redemption period of 75 days. Hart was unwilling to disclose the name of the investors or say how many there are in the group. BIOTA owner David Zutler could not be contacted while another company executive refused to comment on what Hart had said.

Things have been rather down for BIOTA for quite some time. Last year their financial troubles became worse when independent laboratory tests detected mould, bacteria and e-coli traces in the plant’s water. Luckily the findings had been timely discovered and none made its way to the unwary consumers. But for BIOTA it spelt doom. The plant had to be shut down last year in September. It limped back to operations in December. However legal action by UPS Capital had initiated legal proceedings against BIOTA much earlier in May last year.

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